Of Glass Towers and Perfect Lives
by The Fluffy Marshmallow
Summary: She's the popular girl with a perfect life - great friends, good looks, rich parents. At the same time, she's the princess trapped in a tower with no way out or in. Double meaningish thing. Inspired by FaylinnNorse's "The Tower Between Us" with permission


**A/N: This fic was inspired by FaylinnNorse's "The Tower Between Us", which I re-read a while ago and got inspired by. Hope you like it!**

**By the way, I'm working on a portfolio of essays in order to be admitted into a writing programme I want to join. So if you have any ideas for stories I could write or whatnot, do PM me because the due date is soon and I'm getting starved of ideas! Also, R + R this! 3**

_She's never told anyone, but she's always loved to read fairytales. Tales of enchanted worlds, where everything turns out right in the end. Tales of beautiful princesses who are truly kind and lovely, and tales of their handsome princes who will love them till the end of time and beyond. Those beautiful, perfect fairytales are her escape._

She's trapped at the top of a glass tower, the glass tower of her own making, where everyone can see her, but she can't come down. The tower is beautiful from the outside – sparkling and perfect and it seems a dream to live there. But only she can see, from the inside, that it is the creation of a tangled web of lies and deceit.

She looks down at the world below, at people scurrying past and occasionally looking up at her, to see her the way they want to see her – as the girl in the glass tower, nothing more. She acts the way that people want to see her, just so that they will love her more, or at least not hate her. She knows they think she is beautiful, so she strives to be even more so. She knows they think she is nice, is friendly, and so she goes out of her way to appear so before them. She tried telling them, once, how she really felt, screaming and shouting to whoever was below, but the wind snatched her words away.

She knows she isn't that girl that they think she is, beautiful and perfect and wonderful. Inside, she's just as bad as any of them, worse than some. She's wanted to do – and done so many bad things, but somehow people don't see it. They just see the glass tower, and think it's beautiful. It's not like that at all.

While she stands in her tower, gazing out of its clear walls, there are people who look up to her and smile, and wave, and in return she smiles and waves back – her friends. There are those who look up to her tower, and she sees in their faces admiration, and longing, to be just like her, to take her place, or even to be among those who are acknowledged by her. But she sees the fear in their eyes, too, –somehow that fear seems familiar to her, but she's not sure why –, and so they do nothing and move on. And she sees those that barely dare to approach her tower at all, for they know they are not welcome.

She wants to cry out to them, to those people far, far away who will not come near to her. She wants to reach out to them and clasp their hands, let them know that she doesn't hate them. But her glass tower won't allow it. She can bang on the fragile looking glass, scream at it, try to scratch it with her fingernails, but to no avail. It has her entrapped, with no way out.

She doesn't hate the tower, not exactly. Sometimes she even feels like she's used to it, and if someone suggested a change she might think long and hard before making up her mind. At least she knows that she would rather be in her tower than to be on of the cowering people below. At least in the tower she has a place, at least there people can look and see her and not hate her, at least up there in that lonely, cold glass tower she feels secure. The glass tower, in a way, protects her.

But there is one person, one person who looked up into her tower window and saw, really saw _her_, not 'that girl up there', or 'the girl with the perfect life', or anything else that he wanted to see. Or maybe he really, truly wanted to see her as she was. He was one of the outcasts, at first, standing just at the edge of the circle of people that bordered her tower daily. But he never tried to draw closer to her, nor stared at her from a distance; rather, he stood, _watching_, never saying a word, just watching.

And for a long time he stood there, far, far away, watching. But the day when there was no one around, he approached the base of the tower and stood there, looking up at her in the tower, watching. He did this every time she was alone, away from the crowd that habitually followed her, in those rare moments of peace, and she looked down at him, wanting to speak to him, to ask him _why_, and _how, _and _who,_ but her tower did not allow it.

But today, now, he's standing there again, and she's had enough of her deception and lies, and she knows that she needs to speak to him, to someone, and let it all out. But there's no way out of the tower, or even down it, but maybe if she's desperate enough, or crazy enough, just maybe, she might be able to…

Then she's running – or is it falling? – down a flight of stairs, she's not sure where they came from – from her? – but she's glad of them, and she realizes that she can't stop herself, but she doesn't care. The wind rushes past, and she doesn't know why, but tears are falling down her cheeks – at freedom? – and she knows she's reaching the bottom now.

But when she finally reaches the bottom, her eyes and throat are too choked up by tears, and she can't say anything, nothing that she wanted to say. She can see him up close for the first time though, and though many would say he was nothing special, your usual guy, to her, his image is beautiful. And she knows that through her tears, he understands.

"You don't have to be her, you know," he says softly, so softly she isn't sure if she heard him right.

The tears start to slow, but her throat is still too choked for her to utter a sound.

He continues, watching her all the time, almost as though he's afraid he might say the wrong thing. "You don't have to be that perfect girl that everyone thinks you are. You aren't, really, are you? I mean... don't you feel trapped, up there? Like sometimes you'd just like to come down and be, well, one of us?"

His words sink into her, but she doesn't say a word. This is all too new, she's never experienced anything like this before, she doesn't know what to say.

He pauses, like a frightened child who's just messed up the kitchen in an attempt to cook a meal for his mother, as though he's _afraid_ of her, absurd though it is. "I'm sorry. I guess it just didn't occur to me that you like the way you are now, I couldn't imagine… I'm sorry. I really shouldn't bother you any longer. I'll leave now." He turns away, and it seems to her as if the child within has just been chastened for nothing that he has done wrong.

"No… wait!" she manages to croak out. He turns around, and hope lights up his face. She reaches out, and her fingertips brush the wall of glass that stands between them, that cold, inhumane glass that separates her from the outside world, from _who_ she's meant to be. He smiles, a warm smile, and reaches out to touch her fingertips.

And at the place where their hands meet, the glass cracks.

_She's always loved to read fairytales, because in fairytales, everything always turns out right in the end, and that's what makes them perfect._


End file.
